U.S. Supreme Court Use of Social Science Research to Inform Constitutional Criminal Law and Procedure Opinions Throughout the 2001 – 2015 Terms

Abstract

The call for policies supported by evidence based research have increased over the past few decades. The United States Supreme Court is one of the entities that influence criminal procedure/civil liberties through their constitutional criminal procedure opinions. In 1990, Acker published a series of articles that assessed the Court’s reliance on social science research in criminal cases. This study updates that research to assess how the Court has increased (or not increased) its reliance on/use of empirical research in decision-making on constitutional criminal procedure cases from the 2001 October term through the 2015 October term.